Windmills have been used for centuries to convert wind power into energy. These 1000-year-old windmills in #Nashtifan, northeastern #Iran, are among the oldest in the world. Made of clay, straw and wood and standing up to 20 meters (65 feet) tall, they've been catching the area's strong winds to grind grains into flour for centuries.

One of the few such #windmills still in operation, they were registered as a national heritage site by Iran's Cultural Heritage Department in 2002.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/nashtifan-iran-windmills

In the village of Nashtifan in northeastern Iran, Mohammad Etebari serves as the last keeper of an ancient tradition. Now elderly, Etebari has dedicated his life to keeping the town’s few dozen historic windmills turning.

But Etebari doesn’t know how much more time he has, and none of the younger generation seem interested in the hard work of daily maintenance. Without his regular attention, the windmills that have put the town on the tourist map may one day stop.

“It’s the pure, clean air that makes the windmills rotate—the life-giving air that everyone can breathe,” Etebari says in the above video. (See what you know about wind power.)

Made of natural clay, straw, and wood, the windmills have been milling grain for flour for an estimated 1,000 years. The vertical axis design is probably similar to the windmills that were invented by the Persians around 500 C.E.—a design that slowly spread through the world and which was later adapted by the Dutch and others.

Each of the windmills of Nashtifan is comprised of eight chambers, with each chamber housing six blades. As the area’s strong, steady wind enters the chambers it turns the blades, which then turn grindstones. The structures reach up to about 65 feet in height.

The region is so well known for its wind that the name Nashtifan is derived from words that mean “storm’s sting
#Technology